FT. LEAVENWORTH, KS – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts today delivered the following remarks at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College’s 125th Anniversary:

“It is a pleasure and privilege to be back at Fort Leavenworth, the intellectual center of the Army.

“I would like to take a moment to share my appreciation for General Petraeus. General Petraeus has consistently proven his outstanding service as a soldier and a leader, most recently by commanding U.S. and coalition training efforts for Iraqi Security Forces.

“In that mission, General Petraeus led the effort growing more successful every day to train, equip, and resource Iraqi Security Forces, preparing them to assume leadership of their own military and begin conducting increasingly independent and complex combat operations to secure their borders, police their cities, and fight the insurgency. To effectively train the Iraqi’s to act with unit cohesion, and to accept and respect the authority of an instituted chain of command and a national military leadership, General Petraeus and those under his command focused on the physical training and preparation, as well as the mental training and preparation, of Iraqi forces.

“Now, General Petraeus is utilizing lessons learned from that mission, as well as lessons from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, to ensure that our men and women in uniform possess the training, intelligence, integrity, resolve, discipline, and self sufficiency to lead the greatest military in the world. What he provides here at Fort Leavenworth, is a unique understanding of the asymmetrical and battle-space elements inherent in any kind of warfare, particularly insurgency warfare. He is charged with preparing you, our next generation of military leaders, to address these challenges.

“I am encouraged by his success, appreciate his ongoing contribution to the national defense of this country, and I am at the ready as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to ride shotgun with him and with you.

“I would also like to thank you, our men and women in uniform, and especially your families. I greatly appreciate your commitment to the principles of freedom and liberty, your sacrifice to spread these ideals to those less fortunate, and your pursuit of excellence as students and as officers. Despite the criticisms you may hear from the media or from Washington, DC, I can assure you that everyone across this country appreciates the sacrifices you and your families are making.

“As a former Marine, I know deployments are difficult for you and your loved ones, but you’re doing a great job and, despite what you hear from some circles, we are making progress! Please know that it is because of you, and your brothers and sisters in the Navy, Air Force, and Marines, that we are able to take the fight to those who seek to deny the basic principles of freedom and liberty through tyranny, oppression and terrorism.

“Now, we are here today to celebrate the 125th anniversary of one of the most time-honored and relevant schools in the military, the Command and General Staff College. During its 125 years in existence this college has played a unique and vital role in developing an intellectually equipped United States Army officer corps.

“It is this education which provides the Army with the creativity to design war plans, like those in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, as well as the agile thinking required to transition from conducting major combat operations to initiating stability operations in the face of the potent insurgency we see in Iraq today.

“You know better than anyone that commanders in the field today, more than ever before, need the skills to improvise and adapt to a rapidly changing field environment. These are mental and intellectual skills -- the result of high-level command education and the reason the Command and General Staff College was created in the first place.

“Over the years, the College has changed the way it goes about developing Army officers. The change is evident today, as U.S. Army officers are required to know and excel at much more than battlefield tactics, operational art, and strategic planning.

“Today’s Army officer must be equipped with the knowledge and training to be a complete warrior. As you have experienced, this means that as an officer, you must understand more than our enemy’s strategy or tactics, you must understand his thinking, his mind-set, and the way he reacts. You must understand the culture he comes from, and the religious and social practices he values.

“I am proud to have supported Fort Leavenworth over the years. I have worked hard to ensure Fort Leavenworth receives everything we need to serve this critical function. I am particularly proud of what we were able to achieve when, in April 2001, after speaking to a Command and General Staff College Class, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Waugh and Mr. Charles Russell, Chief of Maintenance, gave me a tour of Bell Hall. At one point along the way, Mr. Russell reached up into the ceiling and pulled down a piece of the building’s water system - it was the most corroded and rusted piece of pipe I’d ever seen. Having worked for funding for Bell Hall since coming to the Senate – that pipe became Exhibit “A” as we insisted on action at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. Bell Hall looked OK from the outside but was falling apart on the inside - this - the premier instructional facility within the intellectual center of the United States Army.

“From that point on I began working with General Petraeus’s predecessors - including Lieutenant Generals Steele, Riley, and Wallace - to replace Bell Hall. As the intellectual center of the Army, Fort Leavenworth’s education of Army officers is absolutely critical to the success of the Army’s transformation, the Army’s future and our National Security.

“While we hear plenty in Washington these days about transformation and new equipment and weapons systems, and while those are certainly necessary, it’s clear to me that officer education is far more important than any procurement program.”

Senator Roberts, a former Marine, is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and is Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.